


Strings of Fate

by orphan_account



Series: Enchanted Worlds [23]
Category: Princess Tutu
Genre: Alternate Universe, Families of Choice, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-04
Updated: 2014-06-04
Packaged: 2018-02-03 10:07:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,819
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1740776
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ahiru and Chrestomanci discuss the threads of fate that bind them, and those they love, together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Strings of Fate

"Ahhhh…"

Ahiru sighed with relief as she sank into the tub. The hot water felt soothing, _merciful_ , on her sore limbs; she'd at first wanted to just flop onto her bed when she got back from her ballet lesson instead of waiting for the water to heat up and fill the tub, but now she was glad she hadn't. Her weary muscles were already silently thanking her as she let herself soak.

The lessons were such a joy, though. She'd started them as a way to have a connection with her late mother and to be more prepared for future formal occasions at the castle, and while both of those were still important to her, she'd also fallen in love with dance in and of itself. It was so beautiful, and expressed so much emotion without words, and she found herself getting blissfully lost in the enjoyment of it all, even when she was merely practicing the same moves over and over. She'd never be able to dance professionally due to her fate to be the next Chrestomanci, but that didn't matter to her, the happiness that dancing and the connection point with her mother gave her was enough.

It was giving her so much confidence, too. Ahiru opened her eyes to look down at herself in the water, and smiled. Until the lessons started she hadn't been very happy with her body, thanks mainly to girls at the orphanage mocking her for being "scrawny" and "underdeveloped", making her feel intensely self-conscious, but now she was starting to see it as beautiful. She was gaining strength, learning to express so many things with the way she moved, and as a final cherry on the sundae her teacher had told her she had the perfect figure for a ballerina. It was hard to feel inadequate in the face of all that. Which was good, because in less than a week she and Rue were being fitted for swimsuits in preparation for the upcoming trip to Series Five, and the last thing she needed was to feel insecure about her figure in comparison to Rue's. Now she could concentrate on the fun of finding something cute to wear, her anticipation of the trip itself, and how fun it would be to see Fakir blush when he saw her in the swimsuit.

Alone though she was, she slid down into the water to muffle her giggle as she tried to imagine the expression on his face. That, in turn, made her recall the day last week when they'd danced together - for he was resuming his lessons as well - under the watchful eye of her instructor. Awkward and inexperienced though she still was, she'd easily relaxed in his arms, and it had been thoroughly wonderful. Afterwards, her instructor had told her that they had great potential as partners because of the chemistry and trust between them. She hadn't been surprised at all when Ahiru admitted that she and Fakir were in love, and in fact had said she could tell, or at least had suspected as much when she watched them dance. That too made her giggly and happy and warm all over from the inside.

She let herself relax in the bath for a good long while before she stepped out, allowing it to melt away the lingering soreness in her limbs. She then gave her hair a quick washing in the basin and magically dried it, and braided it again; once that was done she padded back into her bedroom to choose a new outfit. No sooner had she gotten herself dressed in fresh clothes, though, than a knock came at her door. "Miss Ahiru? Can I come in?"

"Anne-Erina? Um, y-yeah, go ahead… what is it?" Ahiru's head tilted in confusion even as the door opened. She didn't _think_ she'd forgotten about any important events or appointments… but then, if she had, she wouldn't remember it, she reminded herself.

"Begging your pardon, sorry to intrude…" She curtsied. "But Chrestomanci is wanting to see you in her office now, and sent me to fetch you."

"To see _me?_ " Ahiru frowned. "B-but why? I-is something wrong? Did I do something bad?"

"I wouldn't know, I'm not privy to her reasons." Anne-Erina shook her head. "If you need it, I can escort you there."

"N-no, that's okay, thank you… I know the way…" Ahiru drifted over to where she kept her shoes, and barely heard Anne-Erina excusing herself as she chose a pair and slipped them on over her socks. She was so preoccupied with worry and curiosity as she headed towards Chrestomanci's office that she almost took the wrong turn twice, and _did_ take the wrong one, just once, but she noticed her error before too long and doubled back, her stomach knotting itself up nevertheless at the thought of being late. She knocked hesitantly at the door when she got there at last. "U-um, h-hi… it's me, Ahiru…"

"Ahiru? Come on in, please." Ahiru obeyed, turning the knob to see Chrestomanci sitting at her desk, as usual. She smiled. "Thank you for coming so promptly, Ahiru."

"Um, y-you're welcome." Ahiru swallowed. "Wh-what did you want to see me about?"

"Nothing to be worried about, so do relax," she said kindly. "Go ahead and sit down." She indicated the chair that had been set in front of the desk, which Ahiru sank down into. "Now then… I've been meaning to have this conversation with you for some time now, though circumstances have been conspiring to put it off over and over. And worse, I find that now that you are here, I don't properly know how to begin." She sighed.

Ahiru shook her head. "It's okay. Take your time."

"Surely you must have somewhere else to be, though?" She gave her a probing look. "I know your lessons are over for the summer, but I know also that your schedule has been no less busy for it."

"Well, I…" Ahiru fidgeted. "I _do_ have to meet Fakir later, but that's not for a while yet, I have plenty of time to talk to you…"

"Ah, yes. You and Fakir. That is one of the topics I mean to discuss with you." Was it her imagination, or had this been exactly what she was fishing for? Had she feigned ignorance of a way to begin in order to get to this point? Something about the look in her eyes gave Ahiru that distinct feeling. "But I suppose I am getting ahead of myself. I wish to begin at, well, the beginning. There are things about myself, my life, that I have not yet told you, and it is important that I do so."

"Oh?" Ahiru found herself interested despite her apprehension. "Like what?"

"My true name, for instance." She folded her hands together on the desk, and then unfolded them and laid them flat again. "Chrestomanci, as you no doubt realize, is merely a title. My true name, which few address me as anymore, is Edel. Had I not been gifted with these nine lives - of which there are now seven remaining - I might have achieved fame under it, for my dearly held wish as a child was to be an actress and take to the stage. Now, however, I am far more well-known, but my true name is obscured by my title and occupation."

"Edel…" Ahiru tried it out. "It's pretty. I like it."

"Thank you." She nodded slightly. "It means _noble_ in German. My family, like many in this country, immigrated here at various points in time." Ahiru nodded knowingly; she herself had German ancestry, at least on her mother's side, and Fakir did too, on his father's side. "Additionally, my parents were rather wealthy, my mother particularly, as she was heiress to a prestigious jewelry business."

"Were?" Ahiru asked. She nodded.

"My mother died shortly before I took on this job. My father… his life was claimed in the accident that also took my first life, an event that enabled the Chrestomanci of the time - a woman named Sophie Jenkins - to locate me. I was only a year younger than you were when you learned of your destiny, and to say it did not make me happy is a grave understatement." She sighed. "I had so many dreams of my own, you see, that were suddenly snuffed out, and to be weighted down with a heavy destiny that destroyed those dreams in the immediate wake of my father's death was overwhelming, to say the least. Particularly since I was expected by my magical instructor at the time to focus on my lessons and my Very Important Fate and quickly move on from my grief at losing a parent and the additional strain of being separated from my grieving mother for most of the week at a time which was so hard on both of us."

"That… that's terrible!" Ahiru blurted out. She felt bad for interrupting, but she couldn't help it. "You - you should've been allowed to process all that naturally, and how sad to be away from your mother when you both needed each other! You shouldn't have been treated like that!"

"I know that now." She stared down at her hands on the desk, at the chips in her manicure. "They were unreasonable expectations to place upon a child, and at the time I resented them greatly. But they damaged me nevertheless, despite my initial resistance. I began to feel like a puppet on a string, and the stress of being made to suppress my emotions and hide them, lest I be scolded, made me begin to shut them off, to shut down, as a defense mechanism against their demands and also against the pain I felt. Even now, I am still unlearning that behavior, and sometimes have trouble expressing my feelings." She paused. "It is… not a thing that helps me to feel like a worthy guardian for you three, or a good mother to Uzura."

"Oh no!" Ahiru shook her head and leaned forward. "Don't - don't think that! You're great! Even if you have problems expressing feelings and we don't all know why that is, it doesn't matter - we all know you care about us and you're giving us a great home, and Uzura is happy too, I can tell. I - I'm so much happier here than I've ever been anywhere else I've ever lived, and you're a part of that, you're always so kind and good to me, and… and I love you, you've been like a mother to me."

"… thank you." Ahiru thought she saw something in her eye, but she couldn't be sure. "I love you too, Ahiru. I love all of you as my own children."

"I'm glad." Ahiru beamed at her. "Cause I feel like we're a real family."

"Thank you. Again." She smiled back at her, finally meeting her eyes. "I feel the same way. And it is a blessing in so many ways, not least of which is because I felt so isolated from my own and never thought I would be able to create another one someday. My mother and I grew distant because of the circumstances thrust upon us in the wake of my father's death; we each had to grieve on our own, in our own ways, and spent little time together, and the weight of the expectations placed on me made it progressively more difficult for me to relate to her in any meaningful way. There was never anger or resentment between us, only a growing inability to connect. Nonetheless, I grieved terribly at her loss, and soon after that my predecessor decided to retire, forcing me to take the title of Chrestomanci sooner than I thought I would or _wanted_ to. It was only a meager few years after the completion of my magical training, you see, so once again I was put into a position I felt unprepared for, with the weight of so many expectations on me, while grief over the loss of a parent was still very fresh."

"Oh no…" Ahiru whispered. "I'm so sorry…"

"As you might imagine, it did not have a pleasant effect on me. There I was, trapped in a demanding job I'd never wanted, with no successor, no family, no friends to act as a support system… I doubt it will come as a surprise to you that I shut down even further." She closed her eyes and sighed. "I nevertheless managed to acquaint myself with many people in the village here, out of politeness and necessity and sometimes not even by my choice. One of those was Charon, and I swiftly became interested in the work he did. I could see he had real talent and potential, and eventually I convinced him to come and work in the castle, for me. Shortly before he moved in, however, he called me down to help with a fire of magical origin that had broken out in a neighbor's home."

" _Oh…_ " Ahiru's hands shook, and she clasped them together tightly in her lap.

Chrestomanci eyed her. "I see you know who I am talking about."

"Yes." Ahiru nodded. "Fakir told me… he told me about what happened to him."

"I'm not surprised." She sighed, but it was one of sorrow, rather than exasperation. "That poor boy… and his poor parents. I wished to save them, but by the time I arrived it was too late for them to be saved, they were trapped beyond even my ability to rescue. Fakir, however, was still alive, though injured, and I was able to get him out in time. I myself succumbed to smoke inhalation and a nasty burn shortly afterwards, but not everyone realized it, I don't think."

"Fakir said… he said he'd heard a rumor that you lost a life saving him." Ahiru blinked back the beginnings of tears. "He… he's too afraid to ask you, though… I think he feels guilty."

"I can imagine." She sighed again. "But I do not regret relinquishing a life in order to save his; my only regret is that I was unable to save those of his parents as well, a thing that I, in turn, have been too ashamed and frightened to discuss with him. It was a thing that greatly occupied my thoughts in the days following the fire, as he lay in hospital recovering. I could not stop thinking about my ability to survive what had permanently killed two people and nearly took their child's life as well. Before that, I had had such mixed feelings about my multiple lives. I had previously felt that they _ruined_ my life by destroying the dreams I had had for it, and I had been resentful of how often it had been hammered into my head to be very careful with them. I hadn't, therefore, valued them very much, but this incident made me rethink that. I felt immense guilt over having taken for granted being able to live again after death, over not having seen how precious life truly is. Additionally, it was the first time that I felt I had actually done something _meaningful_ as Chrestomanci - until that point, my work had mainly consisted of bureaucracy and petty squabbles and nuisances, nothing so important as saving a life. I finally saw the true importance of my position and what I could do with it, the difference I could make in _all_ the worlds."

"I… yeah." Ahiru nodded. "I kinda never thought about it that way either for a while, but then I realized after hearing Fakir's story and seeing how you helped the town when my uncle's friends attacked it, I started thinking about what it really meant to be a Chrestomanci. It kinda put more pressure on me to want to be a good one, but at the same time it's important to me to be a good one _because_ I wanna help people."

"I am glad to hear that." She paused again, to compose her thoughts before continuing. "In all, it helped me to begin to reawaken my emotions. But the true catalyst was when I learned how the fire began. All I had known previously was that it was of magical origin, but until Fakir was ready to speak to me about it no one had been able to tell me what happened. My heart ached for him, this homeless, orphaned, injured child, put into these terrible circumstances by his own power, a power he was now deeply frightened of, and in so much pain and guilt over it all. He wanted nothing more to do with his magic, even swore to me up and down that he would never use it again as long as he lived, but I knew that was impossible." A lump rose in her throat at the memory of a much younger Fakir, bandaged up and crying as he promised he'd never cast another spell again. "He needed to learn to control his power. I knew I could do that for him, he could be instructed at the castle as I was. But I wanted to give him more than that. I wanted to give him a _home_. I knew I couldn't replace his parents, and I had no intention of trying, but that didn't mean I couldn't take him in and take care of him, to give him the support I'd so desperately needed as a young enchanter and help him feel less alone in the world. For the first time in many years, I felt not like a puppet, but like a _person_ , a person making a choice, who could use the things she'd been given and never wanted, in order to help someone else. So I adopted him, and then later Rue as well, and I've tried to be a loving guardian to them. They have helped me regain myself, just as I have helped them by giving them all that I do. And more than that…" She paused.

"More than that, it was the connection I forged with them, the emotional awakening that saving Fakir provided me with, that enabled me to also connect with the man who fathered Uzura," she continued. "That is… not a topic I wish to discuss in detail, but suffice to say that it would not have been possible, that my daughter would not exist, had I not had my emotions revived. In a sense, it feels like I experienced a rebirth in the flames that day. The old me died, and a newer, more human one emerged."

"Like a phoenix…" Ahiru said softly.

"Yes." She nodded. "That now brings me to you and Fakir. You, like me, are bound to this castle: you have no choice but to remain here to live and work after your training is completed. Fakir, on the other hand, has many options, and does not have to stay here. He has chosen to, however, with his wish to become castle librarian. It is a desire he has held since before you came here, but he seems all the more set on it ever since the two of you became a couple." She gave Ahiru another probing look. "The both of you will, thus, be tied together professionally for many years to come, and I have been concerned about how you will be affected should things not work out between you romantically."

"Oh…" Ahiru's shoulders slumped. "I… well…"

"Or, at least, to be more accurate I was concerned about it until your recent visit to your uncle's mansion, and the revelation you two had there about your long-forgotten shared past." Ahiru glanced up at her, but found her expression hard to read. "There is of course always the possibility of things turning sour… but one of the things my predecessor taught me that I have never forgotten is that there are no such things as coincidences. In light of that, the fact that you two met as small children and then miraculously found each other again last year suggests to me an element of fate at play, that you two are _meant_ to be together."

"R-really?" Ahiru's face lit up. "You - you really think so?"

"Yes." She nodded again. "That you should've encountered each other at that age despite that it should've been impossible, given your uncle's restrictions on you and the distance between your home and his, and then had your lives come together again… it does not seem to be coincidence, even if I believed that coincidences existed. Your lives have been entwined since early childhood, and are inextricably linked with mine as well: you are destined to take my place as Chrestomanci, and it was my saving of Fakir that enabled him to survive and meet you again when you came to him as he had come to you in that garden. And now that you have found one another again, you have connected in what is clearly a deep and powerful way." Ahiru blushed. "That does not mean you shouldn't be careful or that you should rush into commitments - for example, I urge you to pay no mind to the teasing Raetsel gave you at her wedding - but it does set my mind at ease."

"I - I'm glad!" Ahiru beamed. "That - that makes _me_ feel even more confident about our relationship too! And - and I promise you, we're not rushing into anything. We know we're still way too young to get married and we haven't even been together a year and neither one of us is done with our training… right now we're just enjoying being together, and… and we really do love each other a lot." She blushed again. "I feel like we get closer every day."

"That is good." She smiled. "And a relief to hear." Her eyes strayed to the clock on her desk. "I do think we are done here, then… and after all, I don't wish to keep you from him when you two are supposed to meet soon." She hesitated, and then reached across her desk to squeeze Ahiru's hand. "Thank you for listening to me, and do not fear - I have every confidence in you that you will be a truly wonderful Chrestomanci, even better than I have been. And no, don't argue with me," she added, amusement twinkling in her eyes, as Ahiru started to protest. "Go and spend time with Fakir, and be happy. I am proud of you, and that won't change."

"I… thanks." It was Ahiru's turn to blink back tears. "Thank you so much!" She stood up, and raced around the side of the desk so that she could give her a hug before hurrying out of the room.

She would never know that more happy tears were shed in that room after she left, for the first time in several years.


End file.
